sporadic Nintendo griping

Kaplan spins away Brothers’ delay

I hate spin. I know that it’s a powerful weapon to be deployed against the huddled gaming masses, but since I’m far too intelligent to be taken by it, it bothers me when I hear it. Enter Perrin Kaplan trying to explain Super Smash Brothers Brawl’s delay:

“And I think we’re actually starting to look at the annual calendar differently,” said Kaplan, justifying the February release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. “The first two quarters of the year tend to be more quiet. But now we’ve seen some evidence of sales in that period.” Avoiding the jostling of the year-end crowd is but one benefit, with the added development time yielding a game that’s “absolutely as perfect as Japan knows it can be.”

The fuck’s that mean, as JAPAN knows it can be? It actually makes good sense to release the game later than all the blockbusters coming out this fall, but I hate how she makes it seem like this was what they had planned all along, or that they’re just refining the game to make it perfect. If you want to avoid the crush of games this fall then just say so dammit. But you know what? I’m probably wrong, because a good game will sell well regardless of the timeframe as Kaplan deftly explains with a basketball analogy:

“I think a really good product can be a slam dunk any time of the year.”